"How did I get here... What am I doing with my life..."

The girl kept mumbling these words to herself as she continued to hold out her claymore as a shield in order to block the attempts of the crawlers that were ganging up on her and attempting to shove their fangs on her armor.

Right after she finished killing the one that tried to swallow her, many more started to show up and began to attack her and Lian Garen the moment the two entered the crawler forest.

"Stop daydreaming, child!!" Lian ordered as he had two of the creatures biting his arms, "These beasts will never stop coming unless we start fighting back!"

Once he finished saying that, he jumped away from them by giving up on his upper limbs, and once he had a chance, used his healing flames in order to grow new ones.

The black knight also got motivated to fight once she began to feel her entire body stinging as the crawlers started to bite on her blade.

"Aaarghh!! Knock it off!!" she shouted before launching twelve of them towards the sky at the same time with a swing of her sword.

The crawlers were surprised for a moment but they immediately recovered and latched onto the trees and began to descend after her once again.

"Lian Garen! You freaking idiot!! Why in the world did you bring us into this place?? You said this belonged to dragon territory! Where are the dragons?? What are these things?"

The eight-legged beings with white skin and the heads of lizards started jumping on top of her like a group of fleas while roaring out loud causing their allies to keep gathering once they heard the sound.

"Explanations can wait! We must keep moving!" Lian replied as he turned his arms into red-scaled dragon claws and began to kill any of the crawlers that approached him, "Help me create a path!"

"You better know what you're doing!"

"I always know what I'm doing!"

The two formed a united front and began to fight back any crawler that they encountered as they advanced through the woods and the fog.

The girl felt nervous over the idea of entering such a strange place with someone as untrustworthy as Lian Garen as her backup, but her head was in such a state of panic right now trying to keep these things away from her sword, the only means to harming her, that she could barely afford to worry about it.

"Where are we going?" she yelled after cutting the head of two crawlers and slashing four more with a horizontal swing.

"Don't talk! Just keep moving!" the dragon responded while walking right behind her and stabbing any enemy insight.

Occasionally he would end up getting bitten by one of them and white spots would start to appear over his skin. Anytime that happened, Lian would simply cut off the skin and re-grow it with his healing.

"What are you doing??"

"I said not to talk!! We are almost there!"

"Almost where!??"

More crawlers started to come out. From above the trees, from under the soil, from deep within the mist. Several white arachnid-like monsters, all glaring at the two and dashing with their jaws wide open.

The girl started to lose sight of how many were there and began to worry over one of them harming her ruler, "Lian!!"

"We're here!!" he reassured as he gave another step forward before turning around.

One of the crawlers tried to pounce on him but it ended up being repelled by some sort of invisible wall and ended up falling on top of the tree roots on the ground, crushing it into pieces.

The girl stopped fighting for a second and began to notice that none of these creatures were reaching them anymore. They were all smacking their heads and trying to stab what appeared to be some kind of force field hidden to the naked eye.

"What did you do...?" she asked while finally catching her breath, or at least she would if she had lungs.

"We reached the safe zone."

"Safe zone...?"

"I told you before. This forest is property of the dragon race. We installed a base inside of it to conduct our researches through our advanced technology. Anything that isn't a pure dragon will be unable to cross that field."

"Buuut... I'm not a dragon..."

"Correct. Technically, you're an armor." he added, "The field won't recognize you as a threat that should be kept away since it doesn't recognize you as a living creature in the first place."

"Oh... Good to know, I guess..." she mumbled while feeling a little bit insulted over not being considered alive anymore.

Although, that did make her wonder just what exactly she was. In theory, she should be a part of the human faction, a human, but why was she reincarnated as a walking empty piece of metal?

The girl looked around and noticed that indeed, they were completely alone in that particular area. Right behind her, a pile of crawlers continued to grow as more kept approaching and getting on top of each other, and in front, a massive tower whose height managed to compete with the trees of this place.

The structure appeared to be about as large as a building in terms of width. An enormous cylindrical building surrounded by floating rings emanating sparks of energy. At the very base, a small human-sized door that appeared to not have been used in years.

"I have questions..." she murmured.

"I thought you said you stopped questioning these kinds of things after a while" the dragon commented while smirking at her.

"I don't question things like magic or supernatural, I'm way past that... But this is clearly something that was built here! Why would your people built something like this in the middle of this creepy forest?"

"Stop making me repeat myself! I told you, to conduct our research!"

"What research?"

Lian turned in the opposite direction and began to stare at the beasts on the other side of the wall being kept at bay.

"We were trying to figure out what creates these things!"

"What...?" she mumbled before turning to look at them as well, "What do you mean?"

"The crawlers are a very dangerous faction..." he started, "One bite from these disgusting jaws and in a matter of minutes, any creature starts to receive an infection that spreads through its body at a ridiculous speed, and ends up making you one of them."

"Wait, what?" she gasped, "You mean like a zombie? Or a vampire? Or a werewolf? Or a- You know, now that I think about it, this is a very common thing in monster fiction, I always wondered why..."

Lian rolled his eyes and continued, "These beings can take down even the mightiest of foes with just a single bite. At first, we tried to get rid of them for good once we won one of the faction games and asked for them to be erased. We assumed this would mean that the place would be safe to explore and study... But in a matter of months, all of our researchers that were sent here began to vanish, and in its place, more crawlers started to appear."

The girl then gave yet another glance at the beasts, and began to look closely at their size and their heads, in particular to the very reptile-like appearance their heads possessed.

"Wait... Let me see if I got this right... These things are dragons that were turned into spider zombies?"

"We call them crawlers."

"You can call them 'Steven' for all I care! That's not the point! What are we doing in here??"

"You said you wanted to make a name for yourself, right?" he mentioned while stretching his limbs and slowly walking towards the tower, "Well, this is your chance. The mystery of the crawler race has been something that none of the factions managed to figure out until now. If you manage to solve it, it will definitely help you build up your name."

"How the hell am I going to solve it?? I assume your people must have tried to look into it for years and they still have nothing! What chances do I even have then?"

"You have the best chances than anyone that came before! We both do! Your skin can't get infected since you don't have any, and I can just rip off any that does get infected and re-grow new ones. If we work together, we can solve a global-scale problem that had been going on forever!"

"I don't know..."

"You want to prove your worth, right? If there is one thing history enjoys more than anything is those that manage to change it! Think about it! The human that solved the mystery of the crawler forest! Even those silly vampires will have to recognize your accomplishment!"

The girl wasn't really sure if that was a good idea. She wasn't exactly good with crowds and being surrounded by all these creatures caused her to easily lose focus on what to do.

It was easy when all she had to do was fight Lian Garen day and night, he was just one enemy and had her entire attention.

But in this situation? She would need to watch out for an absurd number of enemies, be careful not to let any of them touch her claymore, while trying to solve the secret of this place, and on top of that, do all of it while keeping an eye on Lian himself. Would she be able to handle all that? She was just one girl.

But that said, as always, Lian's plan made a lot of sense. She had an advantage that no other being had, and she could use it to solve their problems for them and earn their trust. And it all sounded so easy. Too easy almost.

This whole thing could also be just a trap for him to get rid of her. Although he did had a couple of chances to escape and betray her already, and he didn't. Was he really on her side, perhaps? Or maybe he was just waiting for the right moment? And if he was, was this the right moment?

Was this forest the solution to all her problems, or the thing that would lead to her doom?

She really needed to form an alliance with the other factions, but she simply didn't have enough knowledge of this world to know what she should do.

Luckily, her traveling companion had. All she needed to do was... Trust in Lian Garen.

"Ugh..." she groaned, "I need to make new friends..."

"Oh, please. What kind of friend would be better than the greatness that is me?"

"'The greatness that is you'?? Who talks like that??"

"Enough wasting our time! We shall start our search for the secret of this forest!" he stated, "Let's go, child! We have much to discuss!"

Lian finally reached the tower and pressed his claw against some kind of scanner in order to open it.

The girl flinched for a moment and then decided to finally follow after him, "I feel like I'm going to regret this..."